Life Together, Life Apart
by EchoLoco
Summary: Shortly after their escape from Soul Society, Kisuke and Yoruichi learn all of the ramifications of their life together.
1. Chapter 1

Kisuke reached up to stroke behind one of Yoruichi's ears, enjoying her soft warmth as she snuggled next to him. She made a low purring noise that made him grin with amusement. He thought it was adorable how used to being a cat she had become.

Before they left Soul Society, she had been a captain of the Gotei 13, and she had often had to keep her human form to perform her responsibilities. Even if she didn't have to, she had preferred to keep it a secret from most people. Occasionally, she would wander the Seireitei in her cat form, but not since growing up together with Urahara had she stayed in her cat form for so long. Maybe because he was one of few people who knew about her special ability, and possibly the only person who really accepted it.

He didn't freak out when the bundle of black fur spoke to him, even with her masculine voice. He didn't think it was strange when the purple-haired woman craved milk or fish, or when the black cat barked orders at him when they were on reconnaissance missions. And while her transformation had certainly disconcerted him in their childhood, now he took delight in every change that left her standing in nothing but wisps of smoke and silky violet hair. Unlike the Kurosaki boy, he wasn't quick to make her put clothes on.

Yoruichi loved that about him. She loved the way he softly stroked her whether she had sleek fur or smooth, olive skin.

His fingers slowly rubbing her ear reminded her of the gentle comfort she enjoyed just curled up in the lap of her lover, his hands caressing her little pointed ears, or her tail, which only Kisuke had free permission to touch.

She missed it. She hadn't been able to change into her feline form for months now, but having him petting her made her feel better about it.

As one hand toyed with her ear, Urahara let the other slide over Yoruichi's swollen belly, the reason she was no longer able to change into a cat. He wondered idly if their child would have furry, pointed ears.

Two months later, he found out that he had a daughter with normal, human ears. The girl, for whom Kisuke had picked the name Ururu, had a fine covering of black hair, but only on her tiny head. More like Kisuke's grey than Yoruichi's yellow, her eyes were big, round, and blue. And she most certainly did not have a tail.

A few weeks after that, Kisuke arranged a surprise for the mother of his child, who looked a little weary after weeks of sleepless nights and diaper changes. Leaving the infant sleeping under her godfather Tessai's capable watch, Kisuke flash-stepped out to an open field with Yoruichi, a plate of sushi, and two bottles of drinks for them. Reclining under an oak tree, he gestured towards his lap. Yoruichi grinned as she shrank into a furry black shadow, climbing over Kisuke's legs to curl up near the warmth of his stomach. He poured a cup of sake for himself, and one of milk for Yoruichi, and fed her sushi under the stars.

Yes, she had certainly missed this.


	2. Chapter 2

A month before Ururu had been born, Urahara was tasked with preparing a crib. Mainly, this task was assigned to distract him from repeated attempts to turn the giant underground training room into a giant underground nursery... and training room.

He rose to the task admirably, building the frame by hand with a little help from Tessai. When it came to the mattress, however, Kisuke preferred a less "do it yourself" approach.

Yoruichi accompanied him to the Karakura mall, where he took her hand and led her towards the store he had in mind.

When they passed the baby supplies store, Yoruichi furrowed her brow but followed Kisuke without question. When they had passed both of the housewares stores, she hesitated, but trusted her lover's seemingly confident lead.

When a grinning Kisuke stopped in front of the pet store, Yoruchi yanked his arm sharply. "What's the deal, Kisuke?"

"Ah ha! Let me show you!" He led her inside to a shelf laden with brightly-coloured pet cushions. He looked them over carefully before tugging a grass-green one with little yellow canaries from the stack. The rest toppled over in a fluffy sea around them.

"Yare, yare," he exclaimed, looking at the mess he had made.

"Kisuke..." Yoruichi said, her tone one of warning.

"I'll put them back!"

"_Kisuke_..." Her patience was wearing thin.

"Ah, well. This is just the right size," he said, "and it's very cushy." He held the green cushion out so Yoruichi could verify the claim.

"And, when the little ankle-biter outgrows it, we can move it from the nursery to the office for your own use!"

Yoruichi smacked him on the back of the head.

"I hate canaries," she told him.

Then she took the cushion to the clerk and paid for it, leaving a grinning Urahara to return the waist-deep pile of fallen cushions to their shelf.

~*~*~*~

Yoruichi stopped as she entered the room, leaning against the doorway to observe the strange sight.

Kisuke was holding their newborn daughter at arms length, watching in grim fascination as she spit up all over the floor. "Hey, Yoru," he remarked distractedly, "Doesn't it look like she's Hollowfying? It's adorable!"

Yoruichi allowed herself to laugh uproariously before flinging a towel over her shoulder. She took Ururu, who was happily forming a cluster of milky white bubbles on her face, wiping her mouth and then placing her over the covered shoulder.

"It looks like spit-up, Kisuke," she replied, still grinning, "and it's gross. Clean it up."

He waved his fan at her petulantly. "But Hollows are much easier to clean up after."

~*~*~*~

Kisuke stroked his blonde hair, feeling naked without his hat. Since Yoruichi had given it to him jokingly as part of his disguise for his escape from Soul Society, she had been the only other person ever allowed to wear it.

Now there was someone else. He doubted Yoruichi would mind; she wasn't the jealous type.

Even if she was, she wouldn't be able to deny the absolute cuteness of little Ururu, who was almost drowning in the large bucket hat, and giggling delightedly.

With Yoruichi gone on another of her missions, Ururu had started crying and had only stopped when Urahara lifted her up over his head, making absurd airplane noises. She reached out tiny hands, laughing. She brought her back down in front of him, and immediately she had started sobbing again. Up, giggles. Down, sobs. After a few rounds of this, Kisuke had realized what his daughter wanted. Setting her on the tatami mat in front of him, she had cried for a moment before she saw what he was doing. Lifting the green and white striped object, he planted it on her little head.

Now, she was in the process of contentedly giggling herself into a state of exhaustion, big eyes blinking more and more frequently.

When she finally fell asleep, Kisuke put her in her crib and traded a teddy bear for his hat back.


	3. Chapter 3

Kisuke bought Ururu a hat of her own for her first birthday. Not a green and white one; he didn't think more than one of that particularly absurd design had ever been produced. But he bought her a little pink newsboy hat. It would take her some time to grow into, of course, but then again, he didn't think one-year-olds minded if their hats didn't fit quite right.

He spent the morning baking a cake. Tessai had made one the night before from a recipe he found in the back of some strange catalog, but it had mysteriously melted into a bubbling mass upon cooling. Kisuke made a point of finding a recipe that wasn't so suspicious.

Beating a bowl of eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla, flour, and cocoa, Kisuke sampled about a half a cake's worth while wondering when Yoruichi would arrive.

She had been back and forth between the real world and Soul Society since a couple months after Ururu was born, and had recently been in Soul Society much more often. Urahara was glad that Central 46 had allowed her to go back and forth freely and to work with the Gotei 13. They had stripped her of her captaincy, but they could have just as easily ruled to seal her powers, or even to have her executed, so he was thankful.

He had to admit, however, that he missed the best friend whom he had seen at least once a week if not every day for pretty much his entire life as a shinigami. And, their daughter missed her as well. Ururu had cried for what seemed like days the first few times Yoruichi had gone. It was now down to a good solid afternoon of inconsolable sobbing each time, but it was still just as hard for Kisuke to see her so miserable.

As he was thinking this, he heard the front door of the shop slide open. It barely made a sound, and the lightest of footsteps which followed would have been missed by anyone who hadn't served for years in the Onmitsukido, the Secret Mobile Corps, as Urahara had. Yoruichi was trying to sneak up on him, going so far as to mask her reiatsu. Her stealth was just as telling to her best friend and lover, however, and Kisuke only pretended to continue working on the cake as he waited for her to enter the open kitchen door.

She slipped silently into the room and wrapped her arms around him from behind. Leaning over his shoulder, she took the fingerful of cake batter that he had been about to taste into her own mouth, sighing with satisfaction.

"Mmm, chocolate," she murmured as he withdrew his hand. "Very good choice, Kisuke."

Turning in her embrace, he held up the spoon he had been stirring with. "I think so," he replied, smearing cake batter gently across her lips. He leaned in, meeting her lips with his and hungrily trailing his tongue across the chocolate that was coating them. She opened her mouth to him, and he let his tongue pursue the sweeter taste of her mouth.

After a few moments, Yoruichi withdrew, licking her lips. Taking a relaxing breath, she asked "So, where's the birthday girl?"

"I put her down for a nap so I could get the cake done," Kisuke replied, turning back to his bowl. "It has to bake for about thirty minutes, and then we'll be ready to party!"

Yoruichi grinned into Kisuke's neck, her arms still around him. She loved what an enthusiastic father Kisuke was. "Hmm. Well, I'm going to go check on her while you get that in the oven," she murmured, "and then how about we have our own little party while it's baking?" She left a kiss on his neck as she headed out of the kitchen.

"What luck!" Kisuke exclaimed to himself as she left the room, "Not even my birthday and I'm getting presents!"

An hour later, a disheveled Urahara was trying to frost a slightly burnt, and still too hot, cake. Yoruichi bounced a crying Ururu on her hip, trying to find something to feed her. She located a tin of cat food first. She opened it, releasing a strong salmon smell into the small kitchen.

"You can't feed her that," Kisuke remarked absently, spreading bright pink frosting haphazardly around the cake, "It gives her gas. It gives _me_ gas just smelling it. I've got to get around to rigging some better ventilation in here."

"Lovely," Yoruichi muttered, finally locating a jar of mashed carrots. She wrinkled her nose as she opened it. "This smells even worse."

Kisuke shrugged, too stressed to make one of his signature sassy comebacks. He was up to his elbows in sugary pink goo, and was asphyxiating on the smell of canned fish and carrots.

Tessai soon joined the chaotic scene. "Boss, I've got the streamers up like you asked." Then he saw the cake, perfectly round and quite pretty despite Kisuke's frantic frosting method, and burst into tears.

"Good heavens," Yoruichi sighed, alternately spooning carrots into Ururu's mouth and canned salmon into her own. She accidentally mixed up her spoons and got a mouthful of Ururu's carrots.

"Kuso!" she spluttered. Ururu giggled, causing mashed carrots to dribble out her own mouth.

"Yare, yare," a deep voice laughed good-naturedly. Kisuke looked up to see his old friend, Isshin Kurosaki, standing in the entryway to the kitchen. "Looks like you've started the party without us!"

The pretty blonde woman next to him set a fair-haired toddler down to grasp Isshin's free hand, the other already attached to a dark-haired little girl. "Here, let me help you with that," Masaki said, reaching for a rag to wipe Ururu's orange-leaking mouth.

"Speaking of carrots," Kisuke said, "will your son be joining us today? Or is he afraid of girls already?"

Masaki smiled broadly. "Well, he happens to be hanging out with a girl today, actually. But I'm sure he is a little afraid of her. He had a play-date with his friend Arisawa-chan."


	4. Chapter 4

A few hours later, Kisuke and Yoruichi said goodbye to their guests and began cleaning up the mess, streamers and cake frosting strewn from the living room to the kitchen, and in Ururu's room where the three girls had been playing. It looked like a pink tornado had blown through, and Urahara found himself thinking that Yachiru would have loved it. It was too bad he wasn't able to invite her - he found her antics amusing, and was one of very few people who also found Kenpachi's antics amusing as well.

He briefly wondered what Hiyori would have thought of it, but figured she'd have punched him in the face or worse for even trying to invite her. He gave a bittersweet smile at the thought. For all her abuse, Hiyori was a good fighter, and seemed loyal to people she trusted when it came down to it. Of course, it took a while to gain her trust. Captain Hirako had recommended he wear something sturdy under his hakama for the first few weeks of having the feisty girl as his lieutenant, and when he thought of his daughter in the next room, he was eternally grateful for that piece of advice.

Kisuke was startled out of his reverie by a loud pop. His daughter tottered into the kitchen, tears welling up in her big blue eyes, pulling a string behind her with a saggy pile of foil tied to it. Her "Hello Kitty" balloon had popped.

"Dada!" she wailed, holding up the string.

"Oh, poor thing," he cooed. Elbow-deep in soapy water, he nodded to Yoruichi, who was less sudsy, packing up the leftover birthday cake.

Yoruichi knelt by Ururu, who was rubbing her eyes with tiny fists. "Hey, Uru-chan, it's okay." She reached for the girl.

"Dada!" she cried, running across to wrap her arms around Kisuke's leg. "It's bwoken!"

Kisuke cast an apologetic look at Yoruichi while wiping his arms on his coat so he could scoop his daughter up, balloon and all. "Yoru..."

"It's okay, Kisuke," she said, "Of course she wants you. You're always here for her. She trusts you." Now she looked about ready to cry, and though Kisuke had never seen her do it before, he thought she just might this time.

"Yoru, sweety, she probably just thinks I can fix it or something. Don't cry."

"I'm not crying!" she snapped, more harshly than she had intended. "I know what she thinks. She thinks I'm not someone who can take care of her."

Yoruichi strode out of the room, trying to keep her composure. Tossing herself onto Kisuke's bed, she cried.

After calming the sobbing child down and putting her to bed, Kisuke tiptoed into his room to find Yoruichi sprawled on his bed. Lying next to her, he gently turned her face towards him. Her face was dry and only barely red, but he saw little patches of white near the corners of her eyes where salty tears had dried up.

"Oh, Yoru," he whispered, heartbroken for her. He had grown up with this woman and had never once seen her shed a tear. He brushed her hair out of her eyes and pulled her close to him.

"She hates me," she breathed against his chest, her voice catching.

"She doesn't hate you, Yoruichi."

"She would if she knew me."

Kisuke felt his chest getting wet. He cradled the strongest woman he had ever known while she cried.

"Hey, hey. She's a year old - she doesn't know anyone she hasn't seen within the last thirty minutes. Give her a day or two to come around."

"Is that how it's going to be, Kisuke? Every time I come home I have to spend days getting to know my own child again? I don't know if I can do that."

She shook against him, sobbing forcefully now.

"And every time I leave I break her trust in me? Oh god, Kisuke, do I break _her _heart every time I go? Does she have to cry like this?"

Kisuke didn't know what to say. He wasn't going to lie to her, but by not saying anything, he knew he gave the answer away. So he just held her tighter, rocking her gently against him as she cried for what seemed like hours.

She cried them both to sleep, so when Kisuke awoke, he was still cradling her. He shifted slightly, trying to get up without waking her so he could take care of the kitchen mess before she saw it and was reminded of last night's events.

Coming back after tidying the kitchen and setting Ururu up with a few toys, he found Yoruichi awake, staring blankly.

"Yoru?"

She looked up at him as he sat across from her, taking her hands in his own. Her hands felt cold and her eyes looked pitiful.

"Kisuke. I want to talk to you."

"Okay?" He waited, but Yoruichi said nothing. Her jaw tightened as if she were choking on her own words. Tears started to run down her face, and for the second time in two days, Kisuke felt his heart break.

"I can't do this," she murmured.

It was quiet, barely loud enough to hear. But he did hear it, and it shattered whatever had been left of his heart. She was leaving him.

He knew Yoruichi could no more give up being a shinigami, being a warrior, than he could give up breathing. He had known from the time he fell in love with her that she would never settle down, and he had never asked her to. He had known from the first time he slept with her that she would come and go as she pleased. He knew that anything else meant stagnating. It meant she would wither away, losing that fiery spark that made him love her in the first place. He had been okay with that, but now the prospect of losing her forever made him sick with grief.

"Yoru," he whispered, hesitantly brushing her wet cheek.

"Kisuke," she replied, eyes closed, leaning into his touch. He knew her heart was breaking too. "I can't do this to her. I can't break her heart over an over and over again. I can't earn her trust and then just stamp it out every time I go."

She paused, the most painful silence either of them had ever felt.

"She doesn't know me, Kisuke. And she never should. I can't be a mother to her, so it's better if she doesn't know she has one. If... if she needs a woman to talk to, to teach her things, I can be there for her, but not... not as a mother. Not as someone to count on or to trust; I don't deserve that. Maybe one day, she can, and you can, forgive me. I don't deserve that either."

It took three days for her to convince Kisuke that she was right. Three days during which she watched Ururu play games she hadn't known she could play; say words she hadn't known she knew (and some that she probably shouldn't have, thanks to Kisuke).

It was for the best, she told herself. She would leave again soon, and when she came back, she would just be Ururu's father's friend. Every time she came back, it would break her heart to see the daughter she didn't know.

But it wouldn't break Ururu's heart. And to protect her daughter from heartbreak was her one true wish as the mother she would always be.


	5. Chapter 5

"Kitty!" exclaimed a three year old Ururu, tugging on Kisuke's coat. Or rather, soon to be three year old, as her birthday wasn't until tomorrow.

Kisuke looked out the door, left open to let in the autumn breeze. Sure enough, a black cat was sauntering toward Urahara Shoten. He patted his daughter's head.

"Hai hai! It's Yoruichi-san!" He took Ururu's hand and walked out into the yard to greet the cat, kneeling. "Do you want to say hi to Yoruichi, Ururu? You've missed her, haven't you?"

Ururu reached out a shy hand to pet the cat between its ears. "Konichiwa, Yoruichi-san," she murmured quietly, lowering her big blue eyes.

It wasn't until Ururu was fast asleep that night that Yoruichi changed into her human form. "So, when did she get shy?" she asked, rolling up her sleeves to help Kisuke with the cake he was baking for the party the next day.

"Well, she's always shy, but I think in your case it was more embarrassment really," he mused, focused on trying not to splash eggs all over the kitchen. "You see, she's been fan-girling over you all week. It's been 'Yoruichi' this and 'kitty' that, non-stop. Now that I think about it, she hasn't asked me about her present once since I told her you were coming to her party."

He chuckled, and when he saw Yoruichi smile too, he full-out laughed.

He finally stopped, looking at Yoruichi with eyes full of mirth and mischief. "She's got your legs, you know."

"Pardon?" Yoruichi didn't know whether to be amused or reproachful.

"She can kick like one of those British footballers," he explained. He turned his leg so Yoruichi could see an impressive purple bruise on the inside of his ankle. "I caught her trying to sneak a peek at her present, and when I scolded her, she kicked me. I had to ground her for a day."

Yoruichi smiled at him, knowing how much he must have hated to do so. He was never one to follow rules himself, but at least he was making an effort to make their daughter a reasonably well-behaved child. She was proud of him for raising their daughter on his own, but she was also sad to be missing these discoveries and day-to-day events.

"So what is her present?" Yoruichi asked, adding blue and red dye to the frosting she was stirring.

"A brother," Kisuke stated matter-of-factly.

"A what?!"

Kisuke was about to grin at his own clever joke when he noticed Yoruichi looking rather serious... or maybe murderous was the word.

"It's a Mod Soul," he explained quickly. He would never put her through what she had been through with Ururu, and he hoped she knew that. "I've been working on some different designs for a while now. I need a prototype, and with Ururu's shyness, I think she could use a little friend."

Yoruichi nodded, calming down. It made sense for Ururu to have a sibling to play with, though it was something she could never have given her.

"So, what are you going to tell her when she asks where this 'brother' came from?"

Kisuke hid his laughing face behind his fan. "Well, Yoru - that's your department!"


End file.
